Our Brother Clarence
by HecateA
Summary: Foreign exchange with Camp Jupiter has never been weirder for the Ares Cabin. Oneshot.


***stands on a rooftop and clears her voice* Nobody is going to tell me that being a female demigoddess doesn't have its inconveniences and that sexism isn't a problem at Camp Half-Blooooooooood! **

**Enjoy the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or premise portrayed below.**

* * *

**Our Brother Clarence**

* * *

"So, what cohort you from?" Sherman asked. He literally couldn't care less, but he'd gotten enough talk of diplomacy shoved down his throat to know that he was supposed to be friendly with the roman visitors. Especially ones that they were in charge of babysitting- usually the sons of Mars, but any minor war godling would do.

"The fifth," the guy said. He was built like a basketball player- tall and lean.

"Isn't that the smallest one?" Mark snorted.

The guy, Clarence –their brother apparently- shrugged. "Jason Grace was from the fifth. Zhang, Levesque… it's okay now."

"Guess so," Mark said.

"It'll take more than that to prove it to me," Sherman sneared.

"What heroes came out of your cabin in the last twenty years?" Clarence snorted right back.

That shut them up.

Not much did.

Mark was vaguely impressed.

* * *

"Let's get down to it," Sherman said. He was acting as counsellor for the day; Clarisse was gone to Arizona for a funeral of some sort. "Pair up."

No other cabin usually paired up with Cabin Five during the fighting activities, so they'd all gotten pretty used to beating each other up. Nevertheless, despite his being fresh meat, nobody even considered Clarence.

"Looks like you get to be my volunteer," Sherman said. "Get over here."

Clarence moved forwards. Unlike most Romans, he didn't look completely awkward in the Greek armour Sherman had dug out for him. His grip on the sword was pretty good too- actually, he looked as comfortable wielding it as he'd been with his Roman _gladus. _

"Clarence here is my guinea pig," Sherman said. "I'm supposed to teach you this disarming move that took Luke Castellan three years to master."

"Took you ten," someone snickered.

"Shut up punk, guy's talking," Clarence snapped right back. His voice carried authority and the talking stopped.

"Right," Sherman said. "Okay, I'll do it quickly once. Clarence; basic defence position. Do your best to keep me from disarming you. This move is nearly fool-proof."

Clarence not it and got into position. Sherman drew his sword and raised his sword before striking. Just as quickly as he could lunge out, Clarence swung his sword back. It was all a blur of clever footwork and clean, swift maneouvering to Sherman, but his sword was on the ground.

He starred at Clarence, trying not to look as dumbfounded.

"What?" he said. "You said do your best."

"Yeah, I didn't expect you to know the counter-move," Sherman said. "Especially so well... Nice one."

Clarence looked stunned and then he grinned. "Thanks."

* * *

Clarence's elbows rested on the table as he devoured another hamburger.

"You can sure put tons of that away, man," Sherman said shoving him. "What're you at, four?"

"Yup," Clarence said with a mouthful of cheese, bacon and patty.

"Five," Mark said shoving the last of his burger in his mouth. With a full mouth he managed to convey 'I challenge you'.

"You're gonna regret it," Clarence said reaching out for a fifth hamburger.

The entire table was chearing and placing bets for the rest of lunch. Clarence was a good sport about it too- giving the finger to the guy who tried to choke him mid-bite, giving Mark nasty, taunting glares...

Not only could this guy serve them their own asses, but he could also fit in. That hadn't happened with a Roman before.

* * *

They were standing on the Big House's Eastern size (opposite the porch, where Mr D and Chiron were) and trying to roof a ball. It wasn't as easy as it looked considering the fact that the building was three stories up and that the roofs were all angles. Very few people could do it, which was why _they _all wanted to do that exact thing.

"Amateurs," Clarence said after the ball came dropping back down.

"What would you know?" Marshall sneared.

Clarence held out his hands. Under a round of 'ooooh's, someone threw him a ball. Clarence sized up the building a few times, took a few steps back and then dropped the ball. Just before it hit the ground, he kicked it and it went all the way up to Big House's roof...

and stayed there.

"What do you know, Marsh?" Mark laughed, slapping Clarence on the back. "Seems like he knows a lot."

* * *

They were nailing fresh barbwire to the roof of their cabin and the lining of the porch. Clarence was one of the four guys who'd volunteered to get on the roof.

Sherman just so happened to be looking up when Clarence accidentally hit his thumb with the hammer. Instead of dropping the wire and hammer Clarence retaliated with the longest chain of swear words that Sherman had ever heard, without taking a single breath at any point during the shpiel.

Sherman starred, bright-eyed.

"Is that considered inappropriate over here?" Clarence asked.

"Nah," Sherman said. "But there are a couple of things about Zeus in there that we tend to keep to ourselves."

Clarence grinned coyly. "My bad."

Sherman burst out laughing.

* * *

Piles of dessert cookies were being swapped across the dining table as people won and lost arm-wrestling tournaments.

Clarence's pile was just about level with Mark's, so of course they swapped places with other siblings to match up. It was close, but Mark finally slammed Clarence's hand on the table and raised his arms in the air, victor for tonight.

"No hard feelings, man?" Mark asked as Clarence pushed a tottering pile of cookies towards Mark.

"Not at all," Clarence said. "You've got a good arm."

"Thanks. I could say the same about you."

* * *

Everyone had been listening to his plan quietly. Clarence was the first to stand up and say 'this is bull'.

"How come?" Mark frowned.

"This plan isn't new," Clarence said. "It's just your regular capture-the-flag plan, the kind that the other side is probably already expecting. Plus isn't that vaguely how Gaia's lines were breached on the Western front in Washington state?"

"But with our use of force..." Mark said.

"Yeah, yeah. But your use of force can be used with any plan," Clarence said. "So you may as well put other things to your advantage while you're at it. See that plan? You're not maximising your archers' potential and only half of 9's stun mines are being deployed. What a waste."

"Like what?" Sherman said. Clarence held out his hand. Cabins 5, 7, 9, 12, 17 and 25 were all starring at Mark expectantly now.

He handed the stick he held over to Clarence, who erased the plan in the dirt with his foot and started a new battle plan.

"For starters, you need to hide your flag somewhere smart. Percy Jackson's on the other side, so you may as well stay _away _from water. And with Jason Grace there too, you want to stay away from high ground because then he'll just snatch it and run. You gotta make them come for the flag, you can't just hand it over..."

He went on and on and drew a new battle plan.

One that won them the game.

* * *

"Sherman, Mark," Annabeth Chase said popping her head into the Ares cabin. She looked at the barbwire and wrestling mats and whatnot with a wrinkled nose- typical of cabin six kids. "Chiron needs to see you."

They got up, and Clarence immitated.

"Oh, no man," Mark said. "This is cabin counselor business. You don't..."

"Actually, Chiron said he wouldn't mind," Annabeth said. She turned her heels and went back to the Big House quickly, holding the door for the three sons of Ares and Mars, and then lead them to Chiron's office. The centaur was filling out paperwork about the strawberry sale contracts or something, wearing his glasses and looking all old and office-bound.

"Ah, yes," Chiron said capping his pen and looking up. "How are all of you?"

"Fine," Mark said. Sherman grunted, Clarence nodded and only Annabeth gave a better response (which was 'alright and you?')

"Annabeth, how do you think this social experiment of yours went?" Chiron asked.

"Social experiment?" Sherman asked.

"I think it was rather... rather eye-oppening," Annabeth said. "Nothing I wouldn't have expected, however. But really I only watched from a distance. I think Clarisse would know better."

"Clarisse?" Sherman echoed.

"You're losing your mind lady, Clarisse is in Arizona right now," Mark said.

Annabeth grinned at him, that stupid smile reserved for when she knew something that was about to get you in trouble.

"Alright, alright," Chiron said. "I think your charade has gone on long enough, young lady. Show yourself."

Clarence raised his hand to his face and wiped off… makeup?

Holy shit.

The foundation and whatnot came off of Clarence's face and… it was _Clarisse._

Sherman swore

"Language," Chiron frowned.

Clarisse starred them down.

"What the actual Hades?" Sherman said.

"Surprise," Clarisse said. "It's your brother Clarence. Or your sister Clarisse…"

Silence.

"We didn't recognise…" Mark said, dumb found.

"You think Silena was my only contact in the Aphrodite cabin?" Clarisse sneered. "Punks. Mindless ones at that."

"Hey, it's not our fault!" Marc spoke up. "You're our _sister. _You're a _girl. _We were expecting… well, there would have been…"

He waved his hand towards her general chest area.

"Boobs?" Clarisse asked. "Yeah; it's called a _bandeau. _Keeps your boobs out of the way, makes them fit under armour better. Most of us wore them during the Titan and Giant Wars, genius."

"Even your shoulders…"

"Are wider like a boy's? Padding."

"Your voice was deeper."

"_That's not hard to imitate," _Clarisse said tweaking her voice again.

"But… the make-up…"

"It's not even about that," Clarisse snapped. "It's not about the makeup or the chest or the shoulders. Do you know why you _should _have recognised me? Because of the way I talk- the things I say. Because of the way I move. Because of the way I fight. I didn't change _any _of that. But you didn't even pick up on those. Wanna know why?"

"Because we didn't give a flying-"

"Because you don't notice me," Clarisse said. "Ever. Because you're used to pretending that I don't exist and throwing me aside, because you don't watch me or listen to me. Because I'm a _girl. _But when I was a guy- _bam, _instant respect. In less than twenty four hours."

Sherman and Marc didn't say anything.

"I get it," Clarisse said. "Female demigods get shunned. All they did way back when was start wars when they got kidnapped. Women can't even get into some branches of this country's navy. You were raised thinking that it was okay to pull a girl's hair as long as you liked her. Women only started voting and driving and working and studying at prestigious universities not long ago. Even _Dad _can't cope with female demigods and most war goddesses, it's crazy. But that doesn't mean _anything. _All it means is that there was a problem with society. And all that it means if you refuse to change it- is that you're a problem."

They didn't say anything more.

"You didn't recognise me for the entire day," Clarisse said. "But it was a really good day. Because for once I felt like you two were actually my brothers. Even though you were sexist and stupid brothers, it was better than what we've usually got."

They looked at each other for a long time. At first Sherman tried not to look embarrassed –when she put it that way, they _did _sound horrible. They _were _horrible- but he let the guard down once he realised that his brother also felt the exact same way.

Marc was the one to step forwards.

"You know…" he said. "We kind of… We really liked our brother Clarence. But if she's willing, we're ready to give our sister Clarisse a chance."

The small smile on her face was an answer enough.

"Punks," she said punching them in the arm.


End file.
